


I’ll Tell You All About It (When I See You Again)

by bricoleur10



Series: Shape of My Heart [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Infidelity, One Shot, Other, Prequel to Scared Geometry of Chance, Shane's Perspective, Unrequited Love, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6661837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bricoleur10/pseuds/bricoleur10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shane has a burden, and though he didn’t choose to carry it, he’ll walk alone with its weight until the day he dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ll Tell You All About It (When I See You Again)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back, but was waiting to post it. This story acts as a prequel to Sacred Geometry of Chance, but it’s more about Shane than it is about Rick (though Rick is fundamentally involved). Telling this part of the story is very important to me, because Shane’s character in this story is very important to me. I know it’s easy to dismiss Shane as a bad guy a lot of the time, but in this universe there are reasons for why he did what he did. To what extent those reasons excuse his behavior is up to you, and even if it’s no excuse at all, I think it’s important to know, to understand.

**I’ll Tell You All About It (When I See You Again)**

***  
_“Tell 'em to God. Don' go burdenin' other people with your sins. That ain't decent.”_  
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath  
***

***  
***

The first thing Shane learns when he's a kid is that his opinion doesn't matter.

His dad works graveyards at a factory, his mom's a shift supervisor at a hospital. “I'm on my feet all damn day so I can pay for the shit you take for granted.” They both say it to him all the time – his dad angrily, his mom wearily, but both incarnations of the words sting.

“I just wanna play football,” he tries to reason. It doesn't cost that much, after all, and every other boy on the team has already turned in their money. And they're not poor. They have a pool, for fuck's sake.

“And I just want a vacation,” his father snaps back, but writes the check all the same. “I hope you appreciate this. When I was your age I was already working full time.”

 _But the world's not the same as it was back then_ , Shane wants to say but doesn't. He accepts the money and says thank you instead, just like Rick had told him to. And it works.

But then, Rick's always been a helluva lot smarter than him.

***

“It's just a party,” he tells his best friend one lazy afternoon the summer in between their junior and senior year. “And it's this Friday. C'mon, man, for my birthday.”

“Aren't your parents doing anything?” Rick asks, because in his family birthdays are something to look forward to, not an opportunity to get everyone in the world who wants to judge him unfairly gathered in a room together drinking.

“My grandparents are coming over on Sunday, mom and dad are both working double shifts on Saturday.” He grins charmingly – he's been told it works wonders. “Happy birthday to me,” he starts singing, and he knows he's won when Rick grins.

“Fine,” the older boy (though only by four months), rolls his eyes and throws a wadded up fast food wrapper right at his forehead. Shane laughs when it ricochets off of him and into Rick's milkshake. “But one of us is staying sober so we can drive home.”

***

Neither of them stay sober.

They don't drive home, either, though, so at least there's that.

“Fuckin' hate cops, man,” Shane grouches as he stumble-falls into the bed of his truck, accepting the blanket when Rick tosses it at him. “Always shittin' on everyone's good time.”

“I dunno,” the other boy, already laid out in the truck, arm under his head and a blanket tossed over him despite the Georgia heat, slurs, “kinda always wanted to be a cop. Like on TV. Bang bang, mother fuckers. Shit like that.”

Rick giggles at his own words, and Shane knows he's wasted.

“Shit, man,” he bunches up his own blanket and sticks it behind his head like a pillow. “You should. Lori'd be all over you.”

“Stop.” Rick snorts.

“Seriously,” he presses. He burps and it tastes like Doritos and tequila. “She wants you.”

“Nuh-uh.” Rick shakes his head back and forth; Shane turns his own to make sure his friend isn't about to throw up from the movement. Because that would be gross, and the last thing he wants to spend tomorrow doing is cleaning puke out of the bed of his truck.

He decides Rick looks stable enough to keep teasing. “Didn't you guys already hook up a few times?” He grins like it's a secret, and Rick's drunk enough to act like he's being found out. “Unless those were your panties I found stuffed under your bed last month.”

“She's a nice lady.” Their eyes meet in the dark. They both hold it together for about five seconds before they bust up laughing.

“Well, cheerleaders are supposed to be very...accommodating,” Shane manages to get the words out, just spurring them both on.

He's still coming down from the high of genuine, bone-deep, happy drunk, uncontrollable laughter when Rick rolls over onto his side, closer to Shane and facing him.

His best friend's eyes are bright in the dark. Shane smiles. “Wha-”

Then Rick kisses him.

His lips are soft and dry, firmer than a girl's. He pulls back before Shane can respond.

“What was that?” He asks softly. His amusement is gone, but Rick's still smiling.

“I love you.”

Shane's stomach drops out on him; the same way it does when his parents yell at him, the same way it had when he was twelve and he'd watched Rick crash his ten-speed into a tree. He's terrified, but it's also more than that.

“What?” He can't catch his breath. He regrets having that last beer.

“Know you won't love me back.”

He wants to cry. He wants to punch something. “What?” Desperate, pleading.

“Know you can't.” Rick sounds so serene. Talking like an expert. How long has he known?

“Rick. Rick, I...”

“Don't.” The other boy rolls back to his side of the truck. “Won’t remember tomorrow, but I knew I had to, y'know? Before everything changed.”

Rick passes out while Shane's still staring at him.

He cries that night, silent and afraid, while his best friend sleeps deeply and peacefully next to him. It takes him years to call it mourning.

***

Rick wakes up with a hangover and a grin. “Good enough birthday for you, asshole?” He nudges Shane's shoulder, and when the younger boy looks at him he knows Rick doesn't remember anything. He's not pretending to make it less awkward. For him, it never happened.

Shane decides its better this way.

“Yeah,” he forces a smile. “Unforgettable.”

***

Shane's twenty-three the first time he steps foot in a gay bar.

They've been cops for less than a year. Last week, Shane went with Rick to pick out the ring he's going to give Lori.

“Maybe not right now,” his friend had hedged, “It's just something I wanna have. Don't even know if I'll do it.”

“You just dropped half your life saving's on that rock.” Shane had countered. “You'd better fucking do it.”

Shane knows he will, though. Shane knows a lot of things, actually. Like that Rick had only gone to college because his momma had wanted it more than Rick hadn't wanted it – because their plan had been to sign up for the academy right out of high school but Mrs. Grimes had pleaded, _“Take the four years, see what else is out there. Find yourself. The both of you.”_

So Rick had gone all the way to Ohio, and Shane had moved to Atlanta, taken a job as a security guard, and fucked more women than he could keep track of. He hadn't wanted to call it waiting for Rick, but he knows that's exactly what it had been.

He'd visited once or twice, while Rick was living in an apartment off campus. He'd seen the jeans in the hamper that weren't quite Rick's size, the cologne in the bathroom that he knows his best friend would never wear, the short blonde hairs in the sink. He knows more than people think he does, but he keeps his mouth shut.

He reads a few books about sexuality. Newer ones, with newer ideas. He lets some vegan liberal feminist hippy girl he's fucking pick them out. He reads all about bisexuality and pansexuality, asexuality and gender fluidity. He reads a lot of words and definitions that he knows he'll never remember, and disagrees not so much with the science as the sheer number of words people seem to have to use to describe these things.

He kind of gets everyone wanting their own label, but also thinks a simpler way to sum up over six hundred pages of authors preaching tolerance would have been: _people like who they like, get the fuck over it._

One of the female officers – one Shane hasn't had sex with, yet – makes a crack about Shane being jealous of Lori one day. He doesn't know what makes her say it; Shane hadn't said a damn word about Lori stopping by during their lunch break, had barely even looked at them.

After she leaves, Shane teases him. “You get fucking moonstruck when you've got it bad for someone, brother” Rick flushes, which doesn’t make sense because he and Lori have been together forever by then. Shane wonders what he’s missing there. “Turn useless. Obvious. Thank god you've got more subtlety on the job than you do in your love life, Grimes.”

He'd waited four years for Rick and his fancy college degree to come back to King County so they could join the force together.

After Shirley makes the comment that Lori is a point of contention between them, Shane wonders why he hadn't just joined the force on his own and let Rick catch up.

In five years he's never thought to ask himself that question.

They go out to look at rings the next day.

That’s what he’d missed. 

A week later Shane drives all the way to Tallahassee, under the pretense of visiting his mother's family, to walk into a gay bar.

He's approached quickly by all sorts of men. He's not surprised. Even back in Atlanta this had happened from time to time – he knows he's an attractive guy, and the attention, even the offers, had never really bothered him. If he hated others for wanting him, he'd have to hate Rick, too. And he doesn't know how to do that.

This is different, of course, because every other time he'd been approached by a man it had been neutral, a misunderstanding, hope on their part, acceptance on his. This time, though, he'd sought it out. He's the one hoping.

He sits at the bar and orders a shot of tequila. He smiles tightly at the men who approach him but one by one turns down all of them. He loses his nerve on his third drink. He's back at his hotel room before midnight.

***

“Think I'm gonna stay another few days,” he tells Rick on the phone the next day. “Franny caught a cold and someone's gotta look after her little brats.”

Rick laughs. “You hate kids.”

“Which is why me'an you are goin' out and gettin' shit faced as soon as I get home.” He says firmly. “Two-dollar Tuesdays at Bernie's?”

“You're on.” Rick agrees.

***

The next night Shane doesn't wait. He bypasses the bar entirely and gets proactive. He weaves in and out of the crowd until he finds a man with dark curly hair and bright eyes. He taps him on the shoulder.

“Well, hello sugar.” He doesn't have an accent, but he's eyeing Shane up and down hungrily.

“I want you to kiss me like you've never kissed a man before.” He says these words with an authority and a confidence that he doesn't feel. “Like it's your first time.”

“Straight to the kink.” His surrogate smiles like he's won a prize. “Alright, baby, just give me a second.”

The stranger cracks his neck and his fingers, bounces up and down on the balls of his feet like he's preparing to run a marathon. Then, all at once, his expression falls slack with innocence, his eyes go wide with hope.

Shane's stomach drops out from under him. It's not exactly the same, can't be, but he swears he can smell the heat, taste Doritos and tequila.

The stranger's hand moves up slowly to cup the side of his face. They're almost the same height. His lips are wet and soft. They open slightly when Shane doesn't pull away.

Their tongues meet tentatively, Shane rests his hands on hips that are just a hair too wide to be right. Everything feels hard, and not in the way it's supposed to. The muscles under his fingers are rigid and sculpted. Admirable, but nerve-wracking. He pushes that away and steps in closer.

Shane moves his arms around this stranger, runs his hands along the wide shoulder blades, lets his fingers tangle in the curls. His face burns from invisible stubble. His eyes are clenched tight.

Abruptly, the stranger pulls away.

“Honey...” the man's eyes are soft when Shane blinks back into the moment. “I don't know what this is, but I don't think you should be doing this.”

Anger grips him like an iron fist. “What the fuck does that mean? You got someone else you'd rather go home with? Someone here better than me?”

“I'd prefer someone who actually gets aroused when we're touching.” The other man says gently. Somehow Shane can still hear him over the music and talking.

He hadn't gotten hard, he realizes with a flash of completely illogical shame. “We can do it the-”

“Look, sugar, I don't know if you're trying to prove something, or get over something, or what, but I don't think having sex with someone you obviously don't wanna be having sex with is gonna do anything but create more problems for ya.”

“What are you, a fucking shrink?”

The other man smiles, unperturbed by the anger. “No, but I see one. Maybe you should, too.”

Shane leaves without another word. He goes home the next day. Him and Rick get plastered on two-dollar shots and Shane lies, just keeps on lying, about where he'd been and what he'd done. He doesn't kiss Rick at the end of the night while they're standing next to his truck waiting for a taxi to show up. He doesn't ask his best friend to leave his girlfriend. He doesn't say anything. He can't.

He can't love Rick the same way Rick loves him.

 _Loves_ , because it’s still there. It might always be.

Shane knows a lot more than people give him credit for. He's loud and pushy. He can be a fucking bully sometimes and he knows that. He _likes_ that. But he's not dumb. He knows what love looks like.

He knows because Rick had shown him on his seventeenth birthday.

Rick had taught him love and heartbreak on the very same night, and Shane's never going to be able to give back either.

***

When Carl's born Rick's whole life changes, but Shane's doesn't.

He knows it probably should have. That he and Rick are close enough that it borders on codependency and a baby should have messed everything up, altered their whole worlds.

But he doesn't.

Carl is squiggly, mushy, and cute at certain moments. He cries and poops. He makes his parents tired. Rick comes to work with baby puke in his hair and mismatched socks. He sleeps during stakeouts. Shane picks up the slack and doesn't complain.

He's the kid's godfather, after all. He does what he's supposed to do.

***

Rick and Lori get married when Carl is eight months old – as soon as Lori is back down to her pre-pregnancy weight.

Rick had proposed the day he'd found out she was going to have his baby, barely two weeks after they'd picked out the ring.

It's good, Shane decides one night – drunk, moody, and alone in his apartment – that he couldn't be the one thing Rick had needed him to be. He would have picked his kid over Shane, anyway. He's the kind of guy who'll always choose his family.

_You're his family, too._

He tells that voice to shut the fuck up right now. How's Rick supposed to choose him when Shane's got nothing to offer?

The ceremony is small, but they take two weeks for the honeymoon. Mr. and Mrs. Grimes watch Carl but Shane visits every few days.

“You miss your daddy, buddy?” He coos to the squalling infant one afternoon, bouncing him on his hip trying to get him to settle, but all the baby seems to want to do is cry. “I know how you feel, little man. I know exactly how you feel.”

***

One night Shane's walking home from the corner store when he sees two men making out in a darkened doorway a few blocks away from his apartment.

It's been years now since he'd gone to that gay bar in Tallahassee, and he's been doing a good job not thinking about it. He's happy, for the most part. He has friends and girlfriends, he looks good and he carries a gun, he and Rick are still inseparable, and Carl likes him. So yeah, he's happy. Has to be, right? Nothing to complain about.

Except that seeing those men – odd in a city like theirs, out in the open like that – makes his gut twist painfully.

_Why is that so hard? Why can't I be like that?_

“Hey, assholes! You wanna get a room?” His voice carries on the empty street. The two men turn to look at him. The shorter one raises a hand in surrender and tries to back away. The taller one takes a step forward.

“You got a problem, buddy?”

Out of the shadows now, Shane can see that this man is built. He refuses to be afraid.

“Yeah,” he half-shouts back. “Yeah, I got a problem with you puttin' your sex life on display.”

_You wouldn't if it were Rick. You can't, because someday it might be Rick._

“Seems like you're the only one around.” The bigger man starts to approach him, despite the obvious attempts by his partner to stop him. “So why you lookin', anyway? You get off on watchin' us?”

“Fuck you.” Shane counters. “Just don't wanna see it.”

“Then stop fucking watching.”

The smaller man corrals the other away before anything more can become of the moment.

Shane gets home feeling itchy.

***

Two days later he sucker punches a suspect.

Right there in broad daylight, Rick as his witness.

“What the hell are you doing, man?” Rick demands once he's pulled Shane away. Their movements echo those of the men from the other night, and that's got Shane pushing hard against his best friend.

“Get off'a me,” he grunts as he stumbles backwards, off kilter. “We both know that asshole is guilty.”

“Yeah, we do,” Rick gets real close to him, threatening and serious. All Shane can think about it that he smells like coffee and Lori's perfume. “And we just lost any chance we had of taking him into custody.”

Rick's right, but that's hardly the point anymore.

***

It's harder than people think it is to get into a fight.

Most average joe's won't throw a punch until it's a last resort. You have to pick and push and fucking _rail_ on someone before they'll risk jail time or lawsuits. Problem with the world today if you ask him. Everyone's so damned worried about getting in trouble.

Alcohol makes it easier. Find some people already on the border of civil living, add a little liquor, and then, like magic, all it takes is the right moment.

Shane likes it when he gets his knuckles to bleed. When his ribs ache or his nose throbs. He really likes walking away while the other guy's still trying to pick up his teeth, but he doesn't mind being the one laid out, either.

“You're too young for a midlife crisis,” Rick pulls him aside to say this, the quiet chatter of the police station hums like static in the distance, “and this is more violent than that, anyway. What's going on with you?”

_I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to love anybody and it's all your fault._

“Nothing, man.” He shakes his head and sniffs, looks at a spot just left of Rick's gaze. “I'll get it together.”

***

Rick's parents die one after the other, eight months apart, when Rick and Shane are in their late twenties.

Shane lets Rick cry on his shoulder and saves his own grief for when he's alone. They weren't his parents, after all. He doesn't really have the right to mourn. Not on top of Rick, or even Lori.

Carl's too young to understand, but he senses the grief.

Shane offers to let the boy stay with him for a few days while they're sorting out the funeral arrangements, the second time around. They take him up on it, which is the biggest shock.

Carl's the only one who sees him cry.

Shane can count the number of people who have seen him cry as an adult on one hand, and he wouldn't even need all his fingers.

Some days, he wonders what's wrong with him.

Most days, he doesn't think about it at all.

***

He'd never meant to start sleeping with Lori.

It starts three weeks after Lori and Rick enroll in marriage counseling. Shane has Carl for the night, and the eight-year-old is fast asleep by the time Lori knocks on his door.

“You tell women you bring back here that you have a kid?” She asks quietly, standing in the doorway of the spare room that Shane's put together to be Carl's.

“Mostly keep the door shut.” The cop shrugs. “The people I bring back here; they're not too interested in stuff like that.”

Lori doesn't stop staring at her son.

“Hey,” Shane puts a hand on her shoulder, smiles a little when she finally turns to look at him instead. “You'an Rick...you'll work this out.”

Truth is, he doesn't even know what _this_ is. Rick's said things to him about communication and fighting, but Shane doesn't get it, not really. He's never been close to someone for long enough to get where they are.

“I don't know if that's true.”

Lori's kiss catches him off guard, but he only responds for a few seconds before pulling away.

“You know we can't do this.”

Lori sighs deeply, wraps her arms around herself, and looks back at Carl. “I know.”

***

The next time is a few months later.

Rick's staying at a hotel because that's how bad their fights have gotten. Shane feels like everything is falling apart and it makes him want to fight someone. He's angry. He's _furious_ because it's not even his life, but he's so wrapped up in Rick's world that his pain is Shane's pain. He's angry because he's got everything, everything he needs to make Rick his forever, except the one thing he can't control.

He gets in his car with every intention of showing up at Rick's hotel room. He's got a bottle of tequila and this half-formed hope that maybe tonight, maybe if he gets drunk enough, he can trick himself. He's had nights like this before, here and there over the years, and they always end the same. They never end at all.

That's probably why he winds up at the house, instead.

 _“Do you know what insanity is?”_ Rick had asked him once, tired during a case and on the brink of giving up. _“The actual, literal definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”_

 _“Fine,”_ Shane had snapped back then, nearly as downtrodden as his friend. _“Then let’s do something different.”_

“What are you doing here?” Lori asks when she opens the door. She's wearing jeans and a tank top, no makeup. Shane's always known that she’s attractive – basic simple fact – he’s just never actively thought about it. Because she's Rick's and Rick isn't his and that's such a mess in his brain that he's never really had room for anything else.

“I brought alcohol.” He pulls the bottle out of its brown paper wrapping like a peace offering.

She looks at it for a long moment and then takes a deep breath, and steps ever so slightly out of the doorway. “I've got margarita mix in the pantry.”

It takes half the bottle and a few tears, but eventually they pick up where they'd left off in Shane's apartment all those months ago. She pulls back after the first few kisses, once it becomes glaringly apparent where this is going to go, and says, “I love my husband.”

“I know.” Shane cups the side of her head and leans in close. She smells like tequila and Rick. “I don't. But it's not for lack of trying.”

She's too drunk to really process his words, but she gets this look on her face like she's not going to forget them.

Shane thinks later that maybe she never does.

***

It goes on for a year and a half.

It's never consistent, planned, or sober. Shane will show up when he knows Rick's away because they're fighting. They never talk about it.

Lori tries once to initiate something during one of their good spells, inviting him over while Rick's working a double shift.

“Hell no,” Shane exclaims, angry once he realizes where she wants the night to go. “Rick's been happy the last few weeks. I ain't fuckin' that up.”

“So, what?” She asks, defensive and embarrassed. “This only happens when Rick's already upset? What about me? Do I matter at all?”

“No,” Shane responds without thinking, and cringes at the profoundly hurt look that crosses her features. “Yes,” he rubs at the back of his head, agitated. “Yeah, of course.” He tries to say it like he means it. “Just...it's just...Rick's my best friend, y'know? This is, this is wrong. Been wrong since we started. But I can't wreck the guy out of nowhere. I _can't_.”

“What do you even want, Shane?” She asks. And there's still some anger there, but mostly she's confused. “I've known you as long as I've known Rick, and I don't think I've ever seen you fight for anything.”

Shane grits his teeth hard and looks away. “There's only one thing I want.” It's the first time he's ever said those words out loud. Even if she doesn't know what he's talking about, putting them out there like that makes him shake. “And I ain't ever gonna get it. No matter how hard I fight.”

***

Their affair ends as fluidly as it had begun. Neither of them make an effort to stop seeing one another. There are no grand declarations, no screaming or ultimatums. Shane just stops showing up when he knows Rick won't be there. Lori stops calling.

Rick never says anything to him about Lori sleeping with someone else, and Shane honestly doesn't know if he suspects or not. He's too much of a coward to ask.

He knows he wouldn't survive if he lost Rick, and at the end of the day that's the bottom line of his life.

***

He meets Sara Castello at a bar.

Her hair is straight and blonde, her eyes are dark brown. Shane fucks her like he fucks every other woman he's ever taken home. It's not different until a few months into it, when Rick shows up at his apartment unannounced one afternoon and she's sitting on the couch in one of his t-shirts.

“Sorry, man,” his friend apologizes sheepishly in the kitchen after respectfully averting his gaze and walking away. “I didn't know you were seeing anybody.”

“She's just...” Shane waves his hand, not really sure where he wants that sentence to go. Sara's the first girl he's been with in a long time who doesn't ask for more than he can give. “I dunno.”

Rick smirks mischievously. “Well that's something, isn't it?”

“What?” Shane asks, confused.

“You not knowing something.” Rick laughs and claps him on the shoulder.

 _But I've never known anything_ , Shane wants to respond. He’s sad and he’s angry, because in some ways, some of the most important ways, he’ll always be a stranger to Rick. And Rick will never know. Shane carries that burden so Rick doesn’t have to. 

They make small talk until Sara reappears wearing pants and an unashamed grin. “I like this guy,” she declares to Rick, wrapping an arm around Shane's waist. “Think I might just stick around for a while.”

Later, after Rick leaves, Sara sits down at the table and stares at him.

“What?” Shane asks, confused for the second time in as many hours.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” He snaps.

“Rick.” She responds easily, ducking her head just like the man in question is prone to doing when he's trying to get someone's attention. “Whatever happened between you two that left you so heart sick.”

Shane swears his lungs stop working.

“It wouldn't bother me, y'know,” she speaks softly, with a gentleness that Shane can't reconcile with this moment. “If you used to love him.”

“I didn't.” He says it too quickly, and he can tell by her reaction that she doesn't believe him. He shakes his head. “I didn't.” He repeats, less angry this time. “I never did. I couldn't. I didn't...” He can't breathe, all of a sudden. There are tears in his eyes and he doesn't know how they got there. “I wanted...I wanted it to be...but I couldn't. I didn't. I never did. Why...I never knew why I...everything else was there but I _couldn't_...”

He doesn't see her get up, but he feels it when her arms wrap around him. He resists at first. He doesn't deserve comfort. Doesn't need it. He's never been the one hurt by all of this.

_“Know you won't love me back.... Know you can't.”_

It just feels like more because he's the only one who remembers.

“It's not your fault.” Sara whispers. She doesn't let him go.

“I know.” Shane breathes. Finally he gives in; wraps his arms around her and holds on so tight that it hurts. “Can't change what I am. Makes it so much worse, knowing that.”

He cries on her shoulder until he's got nothing left.

***

He stays with Sara because she's the only one who's ever known the truth. He gets used to her in his space. She's gentle and calm, she never screams at him, even when he deserves it. Rick starts hinting that maybe he should buy her a ring. Shane responds with drawn out tales of her inadequacies; stuff about leaving the lights on and talking in her sleep. Bad reasons to end a relationship, but it's easier if Rick doesn't think he's the marrying type.

He and Lori are still having problems. Shane thinks their marriage will probably end eventually. Maybe not before Carl's in college, but it seems inevitable that they're not going to grow old together. He doesn't say that, of course. Most days, Rick puts on a face like all their troubles are temporary. Shane's not sure if he's trying to fool the world or himself, but he goes with it because that's what best friends do. They protect each other.

***

The day eventually comes when everything ends.

It starts off normal enough. Sara's still asleep when he leaves for the station – she's been working long hours at the gallery, getting ready for some big show, and this is the first day in weeks she's been allowed to sleep in. Shane's tempted to wake her – is yearning, for some reason, to say a proper goodbye. But he doesn't know where that impulse comes from and ultimately he decides to ignore it.

He'll see her tonight, after all.

Rick greets him at the station with a grin and a cup of coffee. “Got a tip that Mark Patton and some of his crew are going to be rolling through here sometime today. The sheriff wants us standing by.”

Shane lights up at the thought of a chase. They'd been stuck with paperwork and routine domestic calls for weeks now – he's been getting bored.

“Bring it on.”

They're eating lunch in the car when the call comes through. _“Linden county requests local assistance. High speed pursuit in progress.”_

“This might get bloody,” Rick warns, all but screaming over the sirens in order to be heard.

“Countin’ on it, brother.”

They're far enough in front of the rouge car that they can lay a trap. Tire spikes in the middle of the road. Shane's excitement is uncoiling, vibrating from the inside out, but Rick's never been good at enjoying moments like this.

“Maybe we'll get on one of them video shows, you know?” Shane hears a nearby office say this excitedly – probably the first time the kid's ever done anything worth a damn since he joined up with the department. “Like _World's Craziest Police Chases_. What do you think?”

Shane smirks at his partner's response; “What I think, Leon, is you need to stay focused. And make sure you've got a round in the chamber and your safety off.”

The kid actually checks his gun. Shane rolls his eyes, but can't help adding, “Would be kinda cool, gettin' on one's them shows.”

Under his breath, so only Rick can hear him, he adds, “Lighten up, man. We're gonna get these guys.”

Rick smiles at him because he believes him.

It's the last quiet moment between them.

Patton's car hits the spikes and crashes. Only it's not a crash like he's ever seen before – in real life or in training videos. This is a straight-out-of-an-action-thriller death launch into midair. 

“Holy shit.” He breathes.

It happens fast after that. It always does.

Patton and his men shoot; Rick, Shane, and the other officers shoot back.

Shane keeps an eye on Rick when he manages to get farther away than the rest of them – it's instinct in the field, making sure the other man is okay. It's that compulsion that's got him bearing witness when his best friend takes a bullet.

Shane's heart plummets. “Rick!” He shoots at the man who’d shot his best friend. He doesn’t even see where his bullet lands; cares only that the violence stops. 

The “I'm alright!” that follows his initial shout brings Shane the most profound sense of relief he's ever felt.

Shane pulls Rick to his feet within a matter of seconds once he gets to him, touching him all over just to make sure he's alright. “I saw you get tagged, man. That scared the hell out of me.”

“Me, too.” Rick sounds like he might be in shock. “That sonnova bitch shot me. Can you believe that?”

“What? It catch you in your vest?” His hands are all over the other man, but he hasn't felt blood yet.

“Yeah.” His eyes are wild with could-have-beens. “Shane, you do not tell Lori that happened. Ever. You understand?”

Shane doesn't have time to process the words or form a response. When he sees Patton crawling out of the demolished car on the other side of the highway he stops hearing anything.

That's when the world slows down.

He knows what's going to happen next.

Shane's an asshole with anger management issues, but he's always known why. He doesn't love Sara, though in another world he might have, but he's always known why. He'd spent nineteen months sleeping with his best friend's wife even though it would have destroyed everything if Rick had ever found out, but he's always known why he'd risked it.

His whole life, everything he's done, everything he's chosen, since the day he turned seventeen...it all would have been so much easier if he'd just walked away. Separating himself from Rick might have, _would_ have, set him free enough to be happy, maybe even to fall in love and start a world of his own. But he never had. He never could. And he's always known why.

Rick is his epicenter.

Shane knows a lot more than people give him credit for. And in that silent moment that seems to go on forever, he knows exactly how his story is going to end.

He shoves Rick hard, not watching when the other man lands back on the ground that Shane had just picked him up from. He tries to raise his gun, instinct more than hope, but Patton's bullet gets there first.

He never sees Leon fire his own weapon, never learns that that's why Patton stops after one.

It doesn't matter, though, because it turns out that one is enough.

The last thing he sees is Rick's face above his. His best friend is yelling at him to stay with him, promising that he's going to be okay, that help is coming, but Shane knows it won't be, that nothing was ever okay.

The last thing he feels is cold. But right before that, it's Rick's hands on his face, harsh and demanding. “I'm right here with you. Don't leave me,” his best friend is chanting. “Don't you dare fucking leave me. I need you. Shane, I-I _need_ you.”

Shane knows that need is love.

The last emotion that consumes him is peace – absolute and whole. But right before that, right before death takes the final hand, Shane can't help but feel guilty.

_“Know you won't love me back.”_

All these years, everything he could have had, everything he could have _given_ , if only he'd been able.

He focuses on Rick's face one final time. He knows it'll be the last thing he ever sees. “I hope,” he has to stop and catch his very last breath. “I hope you and God forgive me.”

He can see it in his eyes that Rick doesn't understand what he's supposed to forgive.

That's the last thing Shane knows.

**End**

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts and opinions are always welcome and encouraged!!


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